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Clark Hubbard: The high road

Yogi Berra, the famous New York Yankees catcher and purveyor of pearls of wisdom, advised that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. Aside from the obvious admonition to make a decision, we might wonder what else he meant.

Are we to assume that either road was just as right as the other? Are we to assume that both roads would lead to the same destination? However, the very nature of a fork in the road does not suggest that both options are right or lead to the same destination. The dilemma of two choices, perhaps equal choices, can cause anxiety, confusion, or desperation. What is to be our guide in knowing which road to take?

Recently, the very dilemma, which Berra illustrates, has been played out on our national stage. The road of Congress has a fork in it. It is the nature of politics. There is the road leading to the left and the road leading to the right. Which is the correct road to take? It is one thing for an individual to make a decision about which road in the fork to take; it is another for a group of people, traveling in the same bus, so to speak, to make such a decision. The bus cannot be split into and still be a means of travel. The result of this indecision is that term of frustration–gridlock. What are we to do?

Each of the two roads has its own values and goals. They are the means by which group members identify themselves, find meaning, and inspiration. To ask that a group relinquish or change its values and goals causes distress, causes conflict.

While that conflict is relatively mild in our country, we see in places like England where the conflict has deteriorated into violence and destruction. The fork in the road has become where the group divides and declares war on those who took the other road. Obviously, the values and goals of the respective groups have their limitations. Otherwise, there would not be division.

The Christian message is that God in Christ calls us to take the high road. It is a message that in Jesus are found love, responsibility, generosity, and sound stewardship of one’s resources. Absent is the partisanship of embracing some values without regard to the consequences of not embracing all these values. To not embrace them all is to lift those select few to the level of God himself. It is the stuff of idolatry.

Yogi Berra reputedly also said, “The future is not what it used to be.” When we put God in Christ first above our own preferences and prejudices, then indeed the future is not what it used to be. The fork in the road begins to disappear, and unity becomes possible.

Clark Hubbard is the Rector St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Richmond Hill. He can be reached at 727-2650.